Sunshine! Barbecues! Fireworks! Who doesn’t love a good July 4th celebration? Well, your hearing for one, and your stomach after your third helping of BBQ, and your skin if you leave off the SPF…See what we’re getting at? The fun times of the 4th can be fraught with peril if you’re not careful. But not to worry; we’ve got the best tips to make sure this is your best—safest!—Independence Day ever.

When you’re trying to decide whether or not to eat before a workout, you’ll encounter a host of conflicting information. Some people say yes, eating before a workout can give you more energy, and others say no, it’ll slow you down. Here’s why I tell my clients to practice fasted exercise for the sake of their metabolism and fat-burning potential.

For starters, studies demonstrate that aerobic exercise performed in a fasted state as compared to a non-fasted state increases the reliance on fat—and subsequently reduces the reliance on carbohydrate—as fuel during exercise. […]

Do you want to be happy? I know I want to be happy and I bet the person next to you wants to be happy, too. Everyone wants to be happy. The desire is part of our biology and hard-wired into our brain. But the reason why happiness arises is varied and complex. Many people think that you find happiness; however, happiness isn’t a thing, so it is never lost. Happiness is an experience, and the conditions for you to have the experience of happiness are surprisingly common. Here are four ways […]

Whenever the cartoon sailor man got in trouble – like when a much bigger adversary was beating him up – Popeye would pop open a can of spinach and gobble the contents, and his biceps would quickly bulge, giving him the strength to pummel his opponent.

Isn’t “high energy” a genetic thing? As a medical doctor specializing in aging and regenerative medicine, I get this question a lot. And it does seem like high energy levels are a part of certain people’s personality or DNA, doesn’t it? But in reality, energy comes from our mitochondria—the small energy factories in our cells that produce ATP. So even if we inherit a given amount of mitochondria, there’s no reason to think that we cannot produce more and have less mitochondrial death as we age. There’s also no reason to […]

Exercise enthusiasts often wonder whether it’s better to eat or fast before a workout. A new study is the first of its kind to show the effects of eating versus fasting on gene expression in adipose (fat) tissue in response to exercise. This study highlights the different roles fat plays in powering and responding to exercise. The study is published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology — Endocrinology and Metabolism.

IS THERE ANYTHING that kombucha can’t fix? It’s one of our favorite cure-alls: from a sour stomach and an “I-partied-too-hard” headache to a lull in energy and chronic skin conditions, we’re convinced kombucha is the answer. Sounds crazy at first, but the nutritional breakdown of this bubbly fermented drink more than validates our position.

If kombucha has yet to make it into your vernacular, here’s a quick 101: kombucha is a lightly effervescent beverage that is made through the fermentation process, much like hard cider, kefir or kvass. It is produced […]

When it comes to fitness, there are certain universal questions that experts hear almost every day: How can I get the most out of my workouts? How can I lose weight faster, burn the most calories, and feel energized enough to power through every training session? While there are other elements that may affect your unique situation, there’s one simple answer that applies to all of these questions: Eat! More specifically, eat the right foods at the right time.

Like many shoppers, I find food labels oddly confusing. You can have words such as “artificial” and natural” in most circumstances, and the implications are pretty clear. But once the words hit food labels, the meaning starts to get blurry. With the prevalence of food flavoring in our diets today, I often wonder what it means to consume natural versus artificial flavors. Is one type of flavoring necessarily better for you when you’re not eating the actual food anyways? While “artificial” generally sounds fake and bad, there are artificially-flavored products that taste more “real” than their naturally-flavored […]